


You can't turn back the clock, I said, but I'd rewind it just for you

by grizzlyeagleshark



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: (ignore my dumbassery), (yes that's a beetlejuice reference), Angst, Gatsby's dead, Gay, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I mean as one-sided as a ship with only one living character can be, I tagged it natsby because that's what I was thinking when I wrote it, If You Squint - Freeform, In a way, Irony, Kinda, M/M, Monologue, Nick is talking to his therapist, Nick's POV, Short, The Author is STUPID, The Author regrets, Unrequited Love, Yearning, but like, but she can use grammar correctly so at least there's that, but there's no happy ending here, but y'know, first person POV, just like the actual novel!, kinda gay tbh, letter to the past, like he's wishing for the past, natsby - Freeform, nick blames himself, no beta we die like men, not like overtly, one-sided, the whole being dead thing, well it could have been requited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:42:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21675457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grizzlyeagleshark/pseuds/grizzlyeagleshark
Summary: It's the five-year anniversary of Gatsby's death. Nick is talking to his therapist about it instead of moving on.
Relationships: Nick Carraway & Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway/Jay Gatsby
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	You can't turn back the clock, I said, but I'd rewind it just for you

**Author's Note:**

> This is a really short little monologue-fic that I wrote instead of sleeping. I was messing around on my typewriter instead of doing something productive and the idea just came to me. Honestly, I feel like this having been written in a sleep-deprived haze on a typewriter is very fitting considering the source material. I am sorry to say that I am no F. Scott Fitzgerald, but I tried, ok?

It is with a heavy heart that I recount the happenings of that day. The worst thing, I think, is that I could have been there. I could have been there and perhaps, I think in my grief-addled mind, perhaps I could have saved him. Time has not been kind to me since then. The years have passed, though I have not moved with them, and I find myself ruminating back on the happenings of that fateful day. In a way, I suppose that the idea that I could have done something has been my own green light. You can't repeat the past, I told him, but is that not what I myself have been trying to do for years now? The only difference, now, between him and myself, is that I know. I know that I cannot keep chasing the light, and yet here I am, doing exactly that.  
I still hear from his father sometimes, although I almost wish I didn't. It both delights and pains me to hear of his past. The boy that could have been, if only the golden visage of my cousin had never visited him. I know, of course, about his deceptions and his falsehoods; I helped him keep of pretense for his last, after all. I know that perhaps he treated me as he did because he didn't want trouble with anyone, least of all his window into Daisy's life. I, though, don't prefer to see it that way. I prefer to put on my rose-tinted lenses and tell myself that I was in friend, perhaps-no, certainly- his only true friend. 

I know of course that I was- no, am- but I think of the past and can only wonder whether he knew it while he was alive or if he saw me only as another stepping stone on his path to the grand and illusory life he'd planned for himself. I told him, once, that he was worth all of them- the whole rotten crowd. He was worth every one of those party-goers and far more than many of the people he surrounded himself with. It was the only compliment I ever gave him. I wish I had given him more, though I can only say that I am glad I at least had the chance to say what I managed to.  


What will always hurt the most, though, is that I let him die with hope. I heard the gunshot, you see, over the telephone. I can only assume that he heard my call come in. I am certain, though, that he would never have thought it was me- never would have even wanted to consider that it could have been anyone other than his precious Daisy. I let him die hopeful, and for that I am condemned. I can only hope that he, watching from the other side, hears this and can forgive me.


End file.
